DMCA Counter Notice
In the early days of the CryptoPhunks collection, we had A LOT of problems with OpenSea and Larva Labs. CryptoPhunks were delisted not once, not twice, but three times from OpenSea. The first two times OpenSea did it themselves because they didn’t think Phunks were derivative enough, but the community rallied and pressured them to relist. The third and final delisting on July 13th, 2021, was a result of a DMCA takedown notice sent from Larva Labs to OpenSea.
But if you know the story of the CryptoPhunks, then you know this community does not quit. This newsletter is a monthly testament to all the amazing things that Phunks are building together!
Which brings us to today. Good ol’ Matt and John of Larva Labs recently sold the IP rights for their CryptoPunks and Meebits collections to Yuga Labs. The v1 CryptoPunks community challenged their DMCA takedown from Larva Labs, which went uncontested, and are listed once again on OpenSea. Now it’s our turn! On March 24th, 2022, the CryptoPhunks community lawyered up and issued a DMCA counter notice to OpenSea which was forwarded to the complaining party.
Does the CryptoPhunks community want to buy and sell our Phunks on OpenSea? Of course not. Our community built Not Larva Labs, a zero-fee marketplace. So why counter the DMCA? Because of the principle. Because CryptoPhunks stand for a truly decentralized and censorship-resistant future for web3. Having the CryptoPhunks collection relisted on OpenSea would bring more exposure to people who exclusively use OpenSea, and an opportunity to connect and educate the NFT community on the perils of centralization in web3. Relisting will be a major victory and retribution for a community that OpenSea tried (and failed) to rug last summer.
Phunks Knowledge Base
Speaking of the story of the CryptoPhunks, wouldn’t it be great if there was a place you could go to learn all about the project? A place where you could:
- Read about the creation, ethos, and history of the CryptoPhunks collection
- Learn where and how to buy, sell, or bid on a CryptoPhunk
- Access a collection of Phunk-related articles, videos, and music
- Read up on the development of the $PHUNKY DAO
- View all the open sourced projects that Phunks have shared with the world
If your answer is “Yes” to any of the above, you’re in luck! They say to DYOR, and CryptoPhunks community member iApe (creator of the beloved PhunkBOT) has made it a whole lot easier for everyone by compiling a Phunks Knowledge Base in gitbook.
Phunky Phresh Merch
The NFT world has been going crazy over merch recently, and the Phunks have been cooking up a community-led merch drop of our own. Introducing Phunky Phresh — a collection of sweatsuits collaboratively crafted by members of the CryptoPhunks community.
Over 100 Phunks were submitted by community members for consideration in the Phunky Phresh merch designs, and the team hand-picked three of them to be used in three unique hoodie/sweatpants combos. Each sweatsuit will be made of 490 GSM pre-shrunk French terry cotton with custom embroidered patchwork and puff-print vinyl, and each design will have a capped supply of 333. Furthermore, the Phunky Phresh team has promised that a percentage of each sale will go to the owner of that sweatsuit design’s Phunk.
The three sweatsuit designs will be made available for purchase one at a time starting with the design pictured below, which features CryptoPhunks community member 9999999333’s ape Phunk #2243:
So who are the Phunks behind the Phunky Phresh project? wheresrvthm and his team at CRE8 are handling the design and production of the sweatsuits, and had this to share about their work as a design team:
CRE8 is more than a platform, more than a brand. CRE8 represents a lifestyle. It represents the extent of a vision; a work ethic. If you don’t work as hard as us, or dream as big as us, there is no place for you among us. There is no space or time for anything less than preeminence, and this is only the beginning. The team was built off of years of love & loyalty, a true phamily. The perfect fit within the CryptoPhunk community, because like the Phunks, through any odds, we stick together and build towards greatness.
OG Phunk NFTenchi is building the website and the custom contract. Yes, the custom contract! The plan is to have folks mint an NFT that they will use to claim their physical sweatsuit through a web3 storefront. Each sweatsuit NFT will mint for 0.08 ETH, and will be retained by the holder after claiming the physical item with plans to include utility for metaverse wearable versions in the future.
Keep on the lookout in the coming weeks for more news concerning drop dates and the other two sweatsuit designs. If you’re looking to get in touch with the Phunky Phresh team or get involved with the project, stop by the 👕︱phunky-phresh-merch channel in the CryptoPhunks Discord server.
Phunk Artist Spotlight
CryptoPhunks love to celebrate their artists! Each week, one phunky artist gets the spotlight to share their work and artistic journey with the CryptoPhunks community. Taking place mostly in the 🎨︱artist-spotlight channel of the CryptoPhunks Discord server, we’ve showcased creators from all walks of art — digital, hand-drawn, photography, AR/VR, mixed media, audio, generative, 1/1 — you name it, Phunks are creating it! Outside of the Discord, CryptoPhunks community member (and previously spotlighted artist) whoiswelanski has set aside a portion of their CryptoVoxels gallery to display the work of our spotlighted Phunk artists in the metaverse.
In the past month, we’ve featured an amazing crop of incredibly talented artists within the CryptoPhunks community:
HugoFaz shared his evocative work in conceptual photography, artistic videos, short films, as well as live acts both for the stage and for public events, in groups or individually. His work in a new project called The World Today is being featured today at NFTLA! You can jump to the beginning of HugoFaz’s Phunk Artist Spotlight HERE.
Nadir Nomad shared his journey as a musician, rapper, and producer, including live performance videos and some tracks that he put together from as early as 16 years old! This past week he released a brand new single titled “Dark Night.” You can jump to the beginning of Nadir Nomad’s Phunk Artist Spotlight HERE.
Lexokinetic shared his creative journey as a digital artist creating CryptoPunk derivatives, unique 1/1 images and videos, and his upcoming generative Celestial Entities project. You can jump to the beginning of Lexokinetic’s Phunk Artist Spotlight HERE.
Galavis shared his work to bring expressionism into the blockchain. During his spotlight, he was selected for an art group show in Paris! You can jump to the beginning of Galavis’ Phunk Artist Spotlight HERE.
Whether you own a Phunk or not, stop by the CryptoPhunks Discord server and join in the discussion! You can also check out all of the other previously spotlighted Phunk artists in the 🎨︱artist-spotlight channel, too.
If you own a CryptoPhunk and would like to be spotlighted, fill out this form.
Not Larva Labs Marketplace Update
The Phunks over at Not Larva Labs, the community-built zero-fee marketplace for buying, selling, and bidding on CryptoPhunks, have been hard at work the past month to prepare a few updates:
Live Market Updates: The CryptoPhunks storefront now updates listings, sales, and bids live on the website without needing a refresh. All data is being fed through websockets that keep the data updated as soon as it hits the blockchain.
Error Messaging: Improvements were made to the error messaging for the transactional functions of the marketplace. So, if your transaction fails, you’ll know what happened.
Multiple Phunk Transactions: Genie.xyz announced that they will integrate Not Larva Labs into their marketplace aggregator app by mid-April. This will allow multiple Phunks to be purchased in a single transaction.
And, as mentioned in last month’s Sup Phunks!, Not Larva Labs is also gearing up to add v1 CryptoPunks to the marketplace and release a Chinese language version of the website.
Phar Out Marketplace Update
If you’re unfamiliar with the Phar Out Marketplace project, catch up by reading this section in last month’s Sup Phunks! And if you want more frequent updates than once a month, follow Phar Out Labs on Twitter.
PhunkyJON (with the help of whalegoddess on the solidity contracts) has finally released the first look at his Phar Out Marketplace! This endeavor is an experiment in self ownership and decentralization, and an enormous win for the CryptoPhunks community. And it’s still only in the early stages of development!
Currently the only marketplace function available is minting Phar Out NFTS for 0.1 ETH. The proceeds from the sale of these NFTs will go towards paying for deployment costs, hiring specialized developers, and ensuring that the team is paid a living wage for their full-time work on the project. Each NFT offers the holder the ability to bypass platform fees on the upcoming market, as well as collect daily rewards from fees collected, whether that’s ETH or other ERC-20’s.
Once you’ve created a profile, there are other functions that are currently live as well. These can be found in the Community section of the website:
- Chat allows you to chat with the world in real-time using a decentralized, distributed database.
- Help-Wanted allows you to list/search community help wanted ads.
- For-Hire allows you to list/search community talent for hire.
- Message allows you to send personal messages to any crypto address.
If you’re interested in joining the project, or even just the discussion, stop by the 🪐︱phar-out-dev channel in the CryptoPhunks Discord server. The team is specifically looking for JS devs and a web designer to help out with front-end work, but even something as simple as testing out the website and reporting on your experience can go a long way.
Phunks in the Metaverse
NFT Worlds: CryptoPhunks community member goodthings (or snotboogy, as he is known in the CryptoPhunks Discord server) plans to offer up a slice of his NFT World to the CryptoPhunks community. The goal is to eventually tap into the $WRLD faucet for P2E gaming, but this project is still in the very early stages of planning.
Even still, phunky builders 9999999333, Merlin, and Lowkey Luke are already experimenting in Minecraft and building out what could become the first iteration of PhunkWorld. They shared some screenshots of their early work in last month’s Sup Phunks!, with more to come in future volumes of Sup Phunks!
CryptoVoxels: As mentioned in the Phunk Artist Spotlight section of this newsletter, CryptoPhunks community member whoiswelanski has set aside a portion of their CryptoVoxels gallery to display the work of our spotlighted Phunk artists.
SouthSide City: Billing itself as “The Counter Culture Metaverse,” the Southside City project is headed up by new CryptoPhunks community member The Professor. For a full breakdown of the ambitious goals of SSC, check out their website or their brand spankin’ new whitepaper.
The Professor related to the web3 outlaw ethos of the CryptoPhunks project so much that he decided (before he even owned a CryptoPhunk himself) to build a token-gated CryptoPhunks Lounge in his upcoming metaverse. Stop by the 🔫︱southside-city channel in the CryptoPhunks Discord server if you’re interested in helping us design it.
Like what you read here in Sup Phunks! Vol. 2? Whether or not you own a CryptoPhunk, join us in our community-led Discord server to get in on the phunky action!
